Ottawa-based journalist Rick Mofina has produced a debut thriller that isn’t exactly thrilling, but charges ahead anyway, until the reader gives in to its anguished momentum. The plot concerns a spate of child kidnappings in modern-day San Francisco, and the two central investigators, a veteran cop and a disgraced reporter, whose personal lives become entangled in the case. With its strong emphasis on endangered kids and embattled families, its relentless references to angels, and its juggernaut plot, If Angels Fall is like a made-for-TV-movie mystery, inspired by today’s newspaper headlines.

According to the publicity material, Mofina has spent his time in the crime-beat trenches, having covered not only the Littleton, Colorado killings but also a particularly wrenching serial killer case in California. Mofina’s familiarity with injustices in criminal law and power politics in the newsroom serves him well here: the behind-the-scenes vignettes of sleazy media tactics and clashing law enforcement jurisdictions are sharp and convincing. Where the book falls down is in its depiction of the bad guys, who are, variously, either covered in tattoos or dementedly quoting from the Bible, as if to illustrate to the reader that such qualities are sure signs of psychosis.

The most gripping sections of the book lie in the two heroes’ careful accumulation of clues – the procedural, pounding-the-pavement stuff. Mofina knows that, more often than not, a case is broken by a minor bit of evidence – a parking ticket, or a comment overheard by a nosy neighbour. It is a testament to his skill that the reader is doggedly turning the pages by the time the pieces (and the angels) start to fall into place.